Bucharest, Romania

Short post here! From Mfuwe, Zambia, we flew to Lusaka, where we spent the night before catching a flight to London early the next morning. The flight was ten hours long, but it went very smoothly, and we made it to our hotel at London Heathrow with no difficulty.  And of course, our arrival in London meant that we've now visited seven continents in 2013.

The next morning, we flew to Bucharest -- three straight days of international travel!

It was fairly straightforward, though, and we found ourselves at a Hilton in the middle of Bucharest on a lovely fall day. We were there primarily because Doug had a conference to attend, and so we didn't feel a great deal of pressure to get out and see lots of things. We enjoyed the area around the hotel and did some shopping to restock some supplies, and basically got ourselves adjusted to being on an entirely different continent.

Carter found a spot to chase pigeons, of course. He has chased pigeons on every continent where pigeons live. 

Central Bucharest looked like nearly any city in Europe, with its cobblestone walkways and tree-lined streets. Even the architecture was familiar, not unlike what you'd see in parts of France or Italy.

The weather was gorgeous and we generally enjoyed just hanging out. I'd planned to do some sightseeing with Carter, but in the end, we didn't do much. 

There is a Hard Rock Cafe in Bucharest, so we went and had lunch there one day so I could add a pin to my collection. Carter decided to rock out on the stage:

Romania isn't in the EU, so it has its own currency:

And... that's about it! I will probably look back and wish I'd done more here, but I think I needed some time to just relax after the busy-ness of the preceding weeks. Carter enjoyed having some downtime to draw and watch videos on Netflix. It's amazing how simple things you might do everyday at home become so special when you don't get to do them on a regular basis.

After a couple of quiet days, we were ready to head on to Rome. I took this photo as we flew over St. Peter's -- you can see the cathedral and the piazza near the center of the picture.

Pictures from Rome coming up in the next post.